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Sergio Marchionne was one of the auto industry's most demanding and tenacious chief executives by rescuing Fiat and Chrysler, two of the industry's most storied brands.

Marchionne has done what many thought impossible, most notably his huge gamble just over a decade ago when he set in motion the marriage between the then-ailing Fiat with bankrupt U.S. rival Chrysler.

His family moved to Toronto when he was 14 to escape what his father viewed as the confines of an Italian society obsessed with status over talent.

His background was in finance, not autos, but Marchionne earned kudos for his turnaround skills in 2004-5 when he saved Fiat, Italy's biggest industrial group with a century of history and a 200,000-strong global workforce, from what was near bankruptcy.

He relentlessly pursued those goals, sleeping on the couch of his private plane while jetting between different offices in Detroit, Turin and London.

A tough negotiator known for getting his way, Marchionne forced General Motors to pay Fiat $2 billion in 2005 in order not to exercise an option to sell its auto division to the U.S. carmaker.